Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1887-05-21
A Puzzled Traveller.

l find myself this morning in a novel
predicament, amusing if one is philo-
sophical enough to look at the amusing
side of it, but at the same time very
annoying, writes a correspondent from
Placquemine, La, to the New York
Commercial Advertiser. We are brought
to halt here by a railroad wreck, and
are likely to be detained here for at
least day. l have my family with
me, and naturally there are expenses to
pay. l have in my pocket number of
coins made of gold and bearing the
stamp OF the United States government
in certification of their weight and fine
ness. These coins are American S.,
$40. and 500 gold pieces. and if were
in England, or Germany, or Russia, or
India, or anywhere else in the world
except right here in Placquemine, La,
/ should find my money current at its
nominal and actual value, because the
two are everywhere known to be iden-
teal.
But here in Placquemine, La, little
town whose people are direct descend
ants Of Longfellow's Acadians, my
American gold is uncurrent money!
first encountered this state of things
last night when offered gold to the
porter of the Pullman car in payment
for my berths. That worthy politely
refused it on the ground that ''that kind
O. money ant good out here, sah." l
demonstrated with him, and told him
that American gold was worth its face
everywhere, because the gold in 1t,
merely as gold, is worth very nearly the
amount of the face value of the piece
He was deaf to arguments of that kind,
and so expounded the law to him, and
quoted the provision making the gold
coin of the United States legal tender in
payment of all debts. 1t was equally
useless. The porter knew nothing about
legal-tender laws or standards of value,
or anything of the kind; he only knew,
or thought he knew, that gold coins
were bad and uncurrent money in this
quarter of the country, and he would
have none of them. managed to
scrape together enough silver, eked out
with nickels, to pay for the berths and
decide in my own mind that the porter
must have got hold of counterfeit gold
coin, and finding it bad, must have
concluded that all gold was bad money.
This morning l have learned better.
Finding ourselves stopped here, order
ed breakfast from the buffet, and after
eating, set out to get some of my gold
changed into bills or silver at the shops
of the town. Alas! the shopkeepers of
the place, even including the saloon
men, were like-minded with the porter.
One and all were persuaded that gold
was not not good money, and with one
mind they refused to take it. offered
to ''treat all round" at saloon if the
barkeeper would take S. gold piece
in payment and give me change, but
he declined. asked if the genuineness
of my gold was doubted, thinking that
might be the trouble, but was assured
that all gold was refused in the town,
and one man, merchant, told me he
believed there had been ''some govern
ment action on the subject which made
gold no longer Of any account" Final
ly one man came to my rescue and gave
me silver in return for SIS gold piece,
saying that the gold might perhaps ''go
for something in New Orleans" He did
it very much as he might have given S.
to a human being in distress, and
could see that he had very little hope of
ever getting anything out of the bright
new gold piece which had drawn a
few days before from the London and
San Francisco bank, in full faith that
the gold coins of my country were the
best and surest possible representative
of value anywhere to be found.
1 am still without any explanation Of
the phenomenon, but it is fact worth
recording that American gold coin is not
current money in Placquemine, La.